Abstract:Surfactants have complex compositions and low molecular weights, which usually leads to the eutrophication of waterbodies. For the treatment of wastewater that contains surfactants, the membrane separation technology is usually adopted. However, the membrane is easily polluted and the cleaning process is usually laborious. In this work, a new surfactants wastewater processing technology was investigated by combining the coagulation and membrane separation techniques. Firstly, the phase inversion technique was used for the preparation of titanium dioxide modified polyvinylidene fluoride ultrafiltration membrane. Structure and properties of the membrane are tested by several instrumentations, like the scanning electron microscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and contact angle instrument. Secondly, using sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate solution and polymerization aluminum chloride as surfactant wastewater and coagulant respectively, the treatment effect is evaluated with respect to ultraviolet light intensity, water flow rate and pH values. By observation, the modified membrane has dense-selective layer on the surface, and its cross-section is composed with finger holes and spongy structures. By the analysis of fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, polyethylene glycol and titanium dioxide in the modified membrane can cover apart of infrared absorption of polyvinylidene fluoride. The modified membrane has relative small contact angle and its performance is also insensitive to the change of ultraviolet light intensity and water flow rate. Moreover, the process can reach best performance while the wastewater with pH value of 4.5. The proposed surfactants wastewater process technique has distinct advantages of high efficiency and low-cost, which makes it with great potentials in the application of large scale industrial and domestic wastewater processing.